1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a landing gear such as would be found on a recreational vehicle (RV). The landing gear is designed to be automated with a motor to drive the landing gear. Further the present landing gear is provided with a dual action mechanism that allows the operator to fully extend the foot without having to manually pull a pin, extend the leg and reinsert the pin in the landing gear mechanism to achieve the necessary extension.
2. Description of the Related Art
The landing gear currently employed on most RVs is motorized. However, even the most common type of motorized landing gear still requires the operator to manually pull a pin out of the leg which allows the leg to slide or telescope downward to lengthen it and then reinsert the pin through aligned holes provided in the leg and the supporting portion of the landing gear before the motorized landing gear can be used to lower to the ground a foot that is attached to the leg.
This manual procedure is required because the landing gear does not have sufficient motorized retraction and extension length to fully retract to a height necessary for the RV to be ready to travel and also fully extend when the RV is to be set up for stationary use.
Manually pulling a pin, telescope the leg downward or upward and then reinsert the pin to hold the leg in the new position is inconvenient at best. This manual operation is particularly inconvenient when the weather is cold or wet because the person who is performing this operation must get down on their knees, sometimes in the mud, to accomplish the task. Also, the owners of RVs are often older individuals who may have had knee or hip replacement surgery which makes getting down on their knees to perform this manual operation difficult or painful.
The present invention addresses this need by providing a motorized landing gear that is fully extendable and retractable by motor driven power and does not require manual extension or retraction of the leg.